


Live On

by sarriathmg



Series: DC kink meme prompts (fills or inspired by) [4]
Category: Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: dckinkmeme, Fix-It, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Movie: Batman: Under the Red Hood, Protective Dick Grayson, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:55:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26788570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarriathmg/pseuds/sarriathmg
Summary: Dick cannot believe his eyes. He didn’t believe it when Alfred briefed him on the situation, and he had insisted on helping Bruce out with the case in hopes of seeing it for himself.There are too many mysteries in this world that can’t be explained. There is no way to understand all of them; inevitably giving up trying. And here he is, his little wing, alive and back from the grave.And Dick doesn't mean to let him disappear again.Fordckinkmeme- Gen, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Protective!Dick: A universe in which Dick is present for the reveal of Jason as Red Hood and absolutely saves the day. And his little brother.Also written for Whumptober Day 2 prompt: Pick Who Dies
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Series: DC kink meme prompts (fills or inspired by) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861840
Comments: 6
Kudos: 316





	Live On

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TerraOfTheTeenTitans](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerraOfTheTeenTitans/gifts).



> For [dckinkmeme](https://dckinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/1454.html?thread=2129838):
> 
> _  
> **Gen, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Protective!Dick**  
> _
> 
> _A universe in which Dick is present for the reveal of Jason as Red Hood and absolutely saves the day. And his little brother._
> 
> Also written for Whumptober Day 2 prompt: Pick Who Dies
> 
> Not entirely sure if prompter wanted Bruce to be there as well (sorry if you did). It's not specified in the prompt, so it's just Dick and Jason here.

The abandoned room is dark and shabby, with an old and dusty fireplace, and papers peeling off of the walls. The clown is tied to a chair, his lips stretched to his ears even as the barrel of a gun is pointed directly to his head. Jason is standing right beside him, dressed in full black and grey, red helmet discarded, revealing his head of messy hair.

Dick cannot believe his eyes. He didn’t believe it when Alfred briefed him on the situation, and he had insisted on helping Bruce out with the case in hopes of seeing it for himself.

There are too many mysteries in this world that can’t be explained. There is no way to understand all of them; inevitably giving up trying. And here he is, his little wing, alive and back from the grave. Not only that, but he has also grown. He is an adult now, tall and strong despite still hasn't grown out of his babyface. Some things about him haven't changed that much. Dick can tell this is still Jason.

That little boy who must have experienced so much pain from his last hours on earth. His little brother whom Dick was too late to save.

Jason is staring at him, somehow manages to look surprised even with the domino mask on his face.

“Where is Batman?” Jason questions, trying to sound deep and tough, but he still rings very much like a boy.

“A few minutes behind me,” Dick answers, holding up his hands to appear less threatening.

“I don’t want you here.” Jason’s voice is dripping hostility. “It’s  _ him _ that I’m waiting for.”

Dick breathes and stares right at Jason’s face, pretending to not see the gun at Joker’s temple. He tries to look away from the clown’s face, away from the red lips stretching into an amused grin and the crinkles around his eyes.

_ It brings back too many memories. The bad news after an exhausting mission with the Titans and a photo of a dead boy light up upon a pale computer screen. The word ‘ _ deceased’ _ and Danny’s taunting voice in his ears. A lone grave with his brother’s name carved into it. _

_ And the choking splutter and haunting laughter of the clown when Dick beat him down, his knuckles throbbing with pain and smeared with the madman’s blood, wanting to see the psychopath in a hole underground like how he'd done with Robin once. And that sadistic voice crackling in his head- _

_ -“Aw...Jeez...I hit Jason a lot harder than that. His name was Jason, right?” _

“If you want to talk me out of it, you’ve come to the wrong person, on the wrong day,” Jason says.

Dick snaps back into reality.

“I want to help you,” he replies, “let me help.  _ Please _ .”

Jason’s body tenses up a little from that. Dick doesn’t miss it, but he doesn’t comment on it either.

Jason doesn’t accept the kindness. Instead, he chooses to hide inside his armor of thorns like he’d always done, baring his teeth like a cornered beast as he growls, “You want to help me? Then try and do what Batman was too cowardly to do.”

Dick is baffled by those words, and he doesn’t catch on until a few seconds pass, and a gun is tossed into his hands.

Dick looks down at the cool metal glinting with the streetlight outside, his eyes widen with disbelief.

“Shoot him,” Jason’s words echo in Dick’s ears, “kill him and avenge me if you are so eager to help, golden boy.”

Dick stares down at the gun, hands holding it firmly yet he makes no move.

“Too good and perfect for this, aren’t we?” Jason taunts. His laugh is bitter, and for a moment Dick almost thinks he is going to burst into tears with how shaky his voice is.

Then there is a sound. A click. Jason’s thumb flips off the safety on his gun. His wrist snaps forward and the hard metal of the barrel presses into the clown’s temple.

Joker stretches his lips and laughs.

“You gotta give the boy some credit!” He says it with a flare of his voice, sounding not unlike the noise made by scraping a chalkboard with fingernails. “He came back all the way from the dead to make this schtick happen!”

Dick looks up and sees Jason clenching his teeth. There’s hatred in his eyes, but there's also pain and anguish. Dick still sees the young boy in him, Robin in his yellow cape and pixie boots, flipping through the air as childish peals of laughter ring out around him. The boy who has had everything stripped away, who has gone through death and resurrection all alone at that tender age. Who is hurting, but too distrustful to show it, instead resolving to hide his wounds inside a coat of thorns so that no one can see what's happening underneath.

And Dick never wanted more than right now for the clown to shut up.

He doesn’t.

“Oh, boy!” Joker grins, showing way too many teeth for anyone to feel comfortable. “The golden boy’s at it again! Huh? Do you want to shoot me? Someone should point a camera at this—oh, I know, someone should call Batsy! Let’s get him here, while we line ourselves up all nice to take a picture, oh, oh, oh! And get the crowbar here too-”

The clown stops and sputters when Jason suddenly pistol-whips him in the face, doing so with so much speed that Dick merely flinches. The light shining at the corner of his brother’s mask is the only sign of tears.

“Jason...” Dick starts.

But Jason isn’t looking at him. His face is downturned as he looks at the clown tied sitting on the chair, his teeth clenched. Jason’s shoulders are shaking as he tightens his grip on the gun.

“It’s either him or me,” Jason says, “kill him, big bird, or I will. Want to save him? Then you have to shoot me.”

He jabs the barrel of the gun into Joker’s head again as another string of laughter spills forth from the killer’s painted lips. Now it sounds wet and gurgling, the blood in his throat bubbling and distorting his voice.

“Decide, now!” Jason suddenly looks up and cries out.“I'm not living with the knowledge this fucker is still alive. You want to help so badly? Then pick who dies!”

Jason’s hand is shaking by now, and so does his voice. Dick can’t stand it. He can’t stand the pain.

“Coward,” Jason breathes, “why don’t you leave now, and let Batman talk to the clown’s corpse when I’m done?”

There is a sudden flinch on Jason’s trigger finger, and Dick is convinced that he is going to shoot. So he responds the only way he can.

He takes the gun in his hand and points it at Joker, pulling the trigger.

The loud bang bounces around the room. Dick had his target set on the killer’s left shoulder. The bullet rips through his body, cracking the back of the chair and severing the ropes binding him. Red blooms out from the hole and taints his purple suit. Joker’s laugh is broken up by the pain. But he is still wheezing, still breathing.

Dick targeted away from any vital points to stop Jason from finishing his move. He could’ve been too late, but he was relying on the faith that Jason won't go through with it. Not without some kind of resolution. It looks like Dick was right. Jason’s astonishment gave him enough of a pause for Dick's plan to work, and it’d be a lie to say it didn’t feel good.

Jason genuinely looks taken aback. But he soon shakes off his disbelief and laughs.

“Pathetic,” he bites out, voice dripping with agony, masqueraded as poison meant to hurt.

“Jason,” Dick implores. “Don’t. There is still a chance to come back to us. Please stop before it's too late.”

Dick is nothing short of genuine. Jason is back despite all the sufferings that he endured, that  _ they’ve all _ endured as a result of his death. There is a real chance for peace and happiness, and Dick wants more than anything to have that. But Jason back also means that Dick can lose him all over again. It terrifies him.

Maybe it won’t be too late this time. Dick still doesn’t know what had brought Jason back, but he is glad that it did, and he doesn’t intend on letting his brother disappear again.

“It’s too late for me,” Jason argues, “happy endings only exist in that fantasyland you’ve dreamt up.”

Somewhere, Joker is cackling, a grazing background noise that makes Dick’s head throb.

“If you don’t want him to die, Dickie,” Jason continues, “then you’ll have to kill me. Only one of us can survive today. You won’t have a choice.”

Dick opens up his mouth to object, but the clown beats him to it.

“Oh boy, how fantastic!” Joker cries out, “what a fun reunion this is! Pretty boy here already killed me once, think you’ll do it again?” 

Jason doesn’t speak, and Dick wonders what those words are making him feel.

“Oh, dear, wish Batsy could see this!” The clown practically  _ sings. _ “Two boys, all willing to kill! Daddy would be  _ so proud!” _

“Shut the hell up, Joker,” Dick says warningly. But Joker continues, humming out a melody.

“Two little birds side-by-side, flocking as I fall dead~”

“I said shut up,” Dick says through clenched teeth, then looks back up at Jason. “Listen to me, Jay. If he dies, he wins. If you kill him, you lose to him.”

Jason looks down and grunts.

“I don’t care.”

“Of course not,” the clown interjects, “boy here had already beaten me to death once, why don’t you ask how it turned out?”

Jason looks up at Dick and for once Dick wishes he can see behind the mask. He can’t read Jason’s expression when it's shielding him so well.

“Jay...”

That’s when the ticking comes. The ticking of a clock.  _ Tick-tock. _ Again, and again. Haunting, bringing back associations and bad memories.

Dick’s eyes dart around the room, trying to find the source. He finds it in the form of a timed bomb situated at the corner of the room, and his eyes widen in disbelief.

Dick freezes in fear and the sudden realization. His body tense up and his heartbeats in his chest, fully ready for fight or flight. Yet, he wasn't even  _ there  _ on that fateful day. He can’t imagine what kind of flashbacks it brings back for Jason.

Dick flies into action almost on instinct and springs towards where Jason is, intending to grab him before it’s too late. But he is met with a barrel in the face. Jason’s face appears cold, his arm tightening around Joker’s neck.

Dick brings his hands up. “Jason, please.”

Jason shakes his head.

“Too late, Dickie. Get out of here before it blows up.”

“What are you-?”

“Get out,” Jason reinstated, “the bomb is not for you. It’s between us. Just us.”

And that’s when Dick realizes.

“ _ You’re _ the one who planted the bomb.”

The clown’s laugh rings in his ears like a haunting dream and Dick’s world spins. But he keeps his ground and takes a step forward, not missing the way Jason’s bottom lip shakes with the slightest tremor.

“Yes, yes, yes,” the clown exclaims, “stay here, pretty boy, join the fun! No fun having a party just with just the two of us!”

Dick takes another step and Jason’s resolve falters a little more. He looks surprised, and when he does speak, there’s a level of hesitation in his voice.

“What are you doing, dickface? Do you want to die here?” He says, “Leave now before it’s too late.”

Joker’s laugh keeps ringing as he seems to get more excited the closer Dick gets. Jason’s hand is shaking now, but he keeps his ground, forcing himself to keep his gun pointed to the face of his predecessor.

“Leave,” the boy hisses. “Don’t be a martyr. It’s not your place to steal this from me”

These words finally give Dick a pause, but only a little. Joker is laughing so hard that Jason is shaking with both anger and what looks like tension, his focus doesn't seem to stay in one place as that screeching sound of the laughter seems to take him back to a dark part of his mind. His most traumatic memory—one of the last before his death. The hand holding the gun dips a little, and Dick knows an opening when he sees it.

Dick springs into action and flies towards Jason, taking his wrist and flipping their bodies. Jason snaps back into reality and he struggles, the gun going off once. Dick has Jason’s arm locked under his armpit and redirects the shot to a space beside the fireplace. Before Jason can take another shot, his wrist takes a hit and the pain makes him drop the gun.

Jason is furious and screaming but Dick isn’t paying any attention to what he is saying. The clock is ticking and there can’t be many seconds left. Between the clock and Joker’s cackling, everything is chaotic and nothing seems to stay still. He can try dragging Jason out of the abandoned building but it’s no guarantee whether the boy will comply, so Dick does the first thing he thinks of. He picks Jason off of the floor, wraps an arm around his knees as he hugs his thighs close. Jason stiffens, too stunned to put up a fight as Dick makes his way across the room with Jason in his arms bridle-style. He jumps out just in time, when the bomb goes off from behind him.

They fly through the air and the shockwave carries them further. A deep voice is speaking somewhere, built with the authority of mentorship as it calmly delivers their shared lesson:  _ to keep the damage to a minimum if you are forced to fall from high ground: land on your side, and roll _ . The loud bang makes Dick’s ears ring with the shock. The sky turns a bright color and Dick briefly prays that he is not too late this time.

Dick lands on his shoulder and he makes a roll for it. The landing is painful despite all the paddings his suit has, but his quick thinking has made sure that his major organs have taken the least hit. Jason is in his arms one moment, with Dick shielding him and blocking the shockwave with his body, but the next blast takes him away.

The explosion leaves Dick dizzy and disoriented. The loudness seems to make the ground shake and the sky tremble. Dick tries to get up on one knee, but he quickly falls with the world spinning around him. He can’t hear anything, his ear briefly deafened by the sound and his body numb from the blast

The sky lights up in a shade of orange as if it’s raining hellfire, the inferno of Joker’s legacy. Broken walls crumble all around him, pieces of cement cracking and falling and burying everything underneath.

Dick blinks his eyes open and surveys the area, at the aftermath and chaos that the explosion has left, and he panics when he can’t find Jason anywhere. His breathing is fast and his heart is pounding, seeing the ruined building and the rubble all around him is bringing back the ghost memory of another blast. Another explosion that had taken a little boy’s life many years prior. He kneels beside a pile of rocks and starts digging with his hands. Sweat falls over his eyebrows and his ripped mask, blurring his vision. There is blood from the many scratch wounds that he had acquired through the landing but Dick doesn’t care. His movement is frantic as he hauls the broken pieces one by one and tosses them aside, looking for one thing and one thing only. The family that he had lost once, the brother that he didn’t have a chance to save.

Dick wonders if Bruce felt like this when he had arrived at Jason's death. If this is the feeling, not knowing if his son is still alive beneath all that wreckage. And for a moment Dick suddenly experiences a blinding fear about what he’ll find. If it’ll be too late when he gets to him. If this is going to be just like the last time. Just like how it ended with Bruce, ending with him finding the lifeless body of the lost Robin. With him not bringing home a brother but instead carrying out a corpse—their brief reunion cruelly terminated by  _ another _ death.

Dick finally spots Jason, a body lying somewhere in the rubbles and covered in dust. He flies over the fastest he can, almost falling down a few times when he fails to spot the pieces of cement in front of his feet. He doesn’t waste any time removing a few pieces out of the way before picking up his brother’s body and holds him close. Dick cups Jason’s face and gently pats on his cheek.

“Hey, little wing,” he whispers, “I’m here, okay? Stay with me, alright? Give me a sign. Anything.”

Dick presses his ear onto Jason’s chest and listens, relieved to find a steady heartbeat underneath his armor and suit. Dick jumps when Jason suddenly coughs, his chest spasming as his shoulders hunch up, trembling in Dick’s arms.

Dick immediately backs away to give Jason space, while keeping a hand on his back, patting him to clear his airway.

“Where-where is-” Jason begins but Dick soon shushes him.

“Don’t worry about what happened to him, alright?” He implores, “Please, Jay. Let’s go have you checked up. Let me take care of you.”

“Did you  _ really? _ ” Jason suddenly says.

Dick blinks in confusion. He is still overjoyed to find Jason breathing and alive in the aftermath of the explosion, his brain unable to decipher what Jason had said.

“What?”

“What he said,” Jason clarifies in a near-neutral tone. He tries hard to make himself sound apathetic, but Dick can tell he is close to shaking. “Did you really kill him?”

“I did,” Dick answers bluntly. “I thought he killed Tim and was furious that we let that happen  _ again. _ Then he started to taunt me about how hard he beat you and- I just couldn’t stop myself. I would’ve become a killer on that day if Bruce didn’t come.”

There is a lot more to be said, but Dick leaves it at that, and Jason surprisingly doesn’t question. He lets Dick hold him for longer than Dick thought, and by the time he tries to push him away, Dick almost lets him.

“Come on,” Dick implores again, “you’re probably hurt. Let me get you somewhere for a check-up.”

“Buzz off, dickface,” Jason leers, “don’t pretend to care when you're just doing it out of obligation. I don't want your pity.”

“I care about my brother,” Dick counters, “and I can’t leave you hurt and by yourself.”

“Of course not,” Jason says bitterly, “because you can’t leave a killer by himself. Can you?”

“That’s not the point,” Dick says. “While it's true I don’t want you killing more people, I also can’t let you walk off hurt.”

Jason stills at that. He does not move for a second, and Dick takes that as a sign to continue.

“I won’t tell Bruce, if that’s what matters to you,” he tries, “I’ll lend you a place of mine, you can stay as long as you want there, until you get better.”

“Better” can mean a lot of things, especially in Jason’s case. Many things still need fixes, and there is no guarantee that they can fix everything, even given a lifetime. But what is there except to try?

Jason listens but he doesn’t respond. When he finally moves it’s to push Dick off of him and to stand up. He immediately falls, landing on his knee.

“Fuck.”

Dick places his hand on Jason’s calf and feels around, picking out the problem quickly.

“It’s broken.”

“No shit.”

“You have no choice then,” Dick says. “Come on. I’ll help you to one of your safe houses.”

This time Jason doesn’t fight him when Dick lifts his arm to drape it over his shoulder, helping him up with his other hand on his waist. He walks slowly, letting Jason limp along with him.

“Tell me where to go, okay?” Dick says, and Jason stays quiet.

Dick smiles nonetheless.

It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. And as long as his brother is still here, still breathing, there is always a chance for reconciliation.

Dick is optimistic about it.


End file.
